News

Sep 25, 2017

For Krista Caldwell, the most shocking part of university was grocery shopping for the first time.

“I couldn’t believe that apples cost more than chocolate bars,” the cofounder of Vancouver-based Deepnify, which won the award for Best Venture at non-profit startup booster Next Canada’s NextAI Venture Day on Sept. 20, tells ITBusiness.ca.

“It’s shocking, because chocolate bars have ingredients from around the world – cocoa and nuts and caramel – and apples grow in Squamish,” she says. “But it turns out the reason is that 20 per cent of apples are wasted before anybody buys them in grocery stores, because the statistical forecasting tools that work really well for replenishing most items in the store fail on fresh foods with a short shelf life.”